Clarity Through Smoke and Fire
by ColorfulAlgebra
Summary: Takao has always been there for Kai. Through unclear times and foggy weather, he’s been there. And he’ll always be there—even if Kai’s not there anymore. Oneshot. Yaoi mentions. Character death.


Title: Clarity Through Smoke and Fire

Author: Pentagramy

Pairings: KaixTakao, KaixRei implied

Warnings: Yaoi, character death, a slither of AU.

Disclaimer: As much as I would love to lay claim to Beyblade, I don't have the papers. And I'm kinda scared of working with devils. (lawyers) So I don't own anything.

Note:

Summary: Takao has always been there for Kai. Through unclear times and foggy weather, he's been there. And he'll always be there—even if Kai's not there anymore. One-shot. Yaoi mentions. Character death.

* * *

**In a moment of clarity,**

Takao woke up from dozing comfortably on the couch before glancing out a window. About eight, eight thirty, judging by the summer's fading sky. The warm, fleecy blanket was draped over his small body; the book he'd been reading bookmarked and neatly let on the coffee table in front of him.

He heard Kai typing on the computer upstairs. It calmed him even more so.

**When all things sink together,**

He smiled lazily, and, even though it was late summer there was a cold breeze gently filling the room. He got up, wrapping himself tightly in the soft white material before closing the window. He set up stairs, making a quick but graceful and quiet way. The young man, twenty four, glided to the study where the 'click, click, click' noises came from. He gently pushed open the door and slipped in, stopping a baby step in back of Kai.

He quickly scanned through the letter—all in Chinese—before glancing away.

**I noticed something,**

Kai had been writing so many letters to Rei lately. Some were in hand, some computer. All annoyed Takao a bit. He thought of Kia in the other room. He would need to heat up some formula soon. Leaning down, he hugged Kai from behind, but the white and black haired man ignored him. He frowned. Okay, so Kai wasn't _really_ ignoring him; he just wasn't responding.

Which, generally, meant this was a worse problem the usual 'You did something' being ignored. The bluenette's thoughts drifting so many letters to Rei…

**That I can't keep living this way,**

Takao, after a few months, was ready to call Kai on something. Rei's letters to their home only concerned Kai—nothing was addressed to him. It was all in a complex tribal tongue—one that you could only learn if you were taught by a tribe member. Kai was typing letters to Rei more too. He neglected Takao in bed, also. And, by neglected, Takao meant that he could throw himself at Kai in the sexy lingerie he could find, and the man just wouldn't _care_.

Expect once, throughout these past few months. He was innocently wearing a pair of kitty ears to entertain their young adopted son with Kai came home. The man freaking jumped him in front of Kia. The bluenette sighed, dropping himself onto the mattress. Kia was out with Kai at work. Only god knows why.

Takao closed his eyes and imagined Kai once again would touch him, pamper him, ask him to adopt another child with the other, or—as corny as it was—call the younger his wife or something!

No, none of that would happen in the near future. Takao opened blue orbs and got up to grab a bag.

**Why did I come to this realization?**

Kai finally called him. Two months he'd been gone, and Kai finally called him. Funny, he had his cell on him, on loud, and fully charged the whole two months.

"Takao," the older man's voice drawled. "Why on earth aren't you at home?"

It was twelve at night. His was in a motel in Tokyo. He was tired. He wanted to go to his childhood home, the dojo. "Kai, I've been gone for two months."

A stunned silence occurred at the other end of the line. The feminine looking man laughed without humor, "Didn't notice, huh?"

"…I thought you just wanted to go out at night for a bit, and you came home later."

"In the morning?"

"The store, I supposed."

"Wonderful, I'm sure Kia is so thrilled no one watches him all day."

"…Why?"

"Because I couldn't—no, I _can't_ live there anymore." Takao whispered, looking at a small chip of the paint in the wall. He smiled through tears. "Let me guess. Why did I come to this realization?"

**I'm not sure.**

Kai sighed heavily. This was the fourth call this month. Once a week, he called Takao. The calls normally ended in failure. "Why?" he'd asked this time. "Why?"

Takao had hesitated. "I'm not sure, anymore."

**But I've noticed that something is missing in you.**

Takao had been back for a week. Kai touched him now. But it was on automatic, the touches. Twice a week he would run his hands in what was suppose to be a loving manner up and down the bluenette in bed. He took Takao whenever the boy was willing, which wasn't much anymore. The letters had stopped going, but they never stopped receiving.

The smaller man would want to cry every time he saw that letter in the mail. When the red eyed man just locked them in a cabinet to make Takao happy—without opening any of them—but a smaller bit of the passion the taller man possessed left his eyes. There wasn't much left anymore.

**So I'm letting you go find it,**

Takao dumped all the letters in front of Kai, on his desk. "Go visit Rei in China," he demanded. "It'll be good for you!"

He bought the two plane tickets—one for Kia, one for Kai. Both going to China.

**And I would like to see you again,**

As soon as the plane was in the air, Takao had a haunting feel as he watched it go. Those boys would never, ever come back. But the worst part was it wasn't going to be death that ripped them away. The blue eyed man shrugged the feeling off, going home to do the rest of the chores. He knew all along, really. He knows what going to happen. But doesn't mean he doesn't want to deny it.

**But if I can't that's okay,**

Two weeks. They were supposed to have come back two weeks ago. But they didn't. And so Takao drove to the airport every day, waiting for his boys. But they didn't come. And he waited from early morning to late night. He got things done even later at night, and even earlier in the morning. He barely slept.

**Because I just want you to be happy anyway.**

He got the call two months later. He almost cried with joy when he hear Kai's smooth, masculine voice, with Kia's babyish, high one in the background, laughing. Two months of living out of the airport, he finally got the call. The one he knew was coming since the letters started to exclude him.

"Takao-chan, I'm not coming home."

**I noted how happier you where when you came to stay,**

He looked good. That's the only the he could think of as the older man scooped him into his arms and held him to his chest, kissing his neck. Kai looked good. He practically glowed, Kia trotting behind him, six years now, and looking at handsome as a cute six-year-old could. On the way to the old house Takao barely heard Kai. But he listened. Rei this, the company that, Kia did this and that…

The list went on. The bluenette, now twenty eight, barely felt himself enter the house. He just knew he did. He was always in a barely aware state, now. The house had baby toys tossed about; papers on the desk and in the drawers. It was so clean it didn't looked lived in. He felt Kai cast him a worried look. Despite the cleanliness, everything was left the way it was the day two of three males in the house left for China.

**But you were "Only here for a day."**

Takao smiled broken, watching the plane take off again. Kia, with a slight Chinese accent, stomped around the house, screaming he wanted Rei or Kai when Takao was left to baby sit him. Tears almost spilled out of numb-looking blue orbs. He should've had a Japanese accent. He should've been crying for Takao to play with him. He shouldn't have kicked Takao and screamed at him.

He should've just been Takao and Kai's, like was planned all along. But he was _Kai and Rei's_, and that made Takao even number.

**And I think that's fine!**

Takao had laughed flirtingly, almost, as Kai had ate his dinner, commenting on business things to Takao like he was a woman in the forty's and business shouldn't interest him anyway. Kia clung to his constant father, cloudy but smoky grey eyes narrowed in suspicion. Takao smiled in a motherly fashion. The young boy's eye narrowed eyes further, pulling off his father's death glare. His lips formed a cruel grimace.

When Kai left to go to the bathroom quickly, Kia kicked his shin. He continued to smiled, while his knee—amazingly—started to swell and shoot white hot pain through it whenever he moved a bit. But it'd be okay.

**Because I've always backed you up,**

Another six years, and Takao still went to the airport every day. But, today, he couldn't go. The airport was in a lock down. No planes leaving, no planes coming. It was a horrible blizzard outside, which was really, really weird for Japan. So today, he left memories eat at him.

_He made sure Kai's paperwork was always ready to go.  
He took care of Kia through the first infant months.  
He saved Kai's life.  
He never gave up on Kai.  
He depended on Kai.  
He loved Kai._

Different memories showed him different meanings, though they were all linked. He was lying lifelessly on the couch when he allowed himself a sacred moment. The moment he never allowed himself in all the twelve years his boys' hadn't been there for him. The moment he allowed himself to be jealous of Rei and the easy access he had to Takao's loved ones, and the moment to miss his two boys.

**And with so many years poured in,**

Takao was forty nine. He looked twenty nine. He had been with Kai since he was twelve. So he'd been involved a total of thirty seven years. He'd been practically living at the god forsaken airport for about twenty seven years now—the majority of his life. He sighed, getting into his car before pulling out onto the street. Why stop doing this now, with all the time he'd spent on it.

**Stopping kind of seems like a sin,**

Takao had been doing it for fifty three years now. So he was seventy five. He wasn't half bad, either. No lines on his smooth face, untouched by age. His body was slightly girly and small. He was perfect for a person nearing their eighties. But he never stopped coming back. The staff at the airport, new and old, all knew him by now. He was a legend in the airport, constantly looking for "her" love. The staff kept sharp eyes out for any remotely like Kai. But they never showed up.

**So I'll always be there,**

He sat in a special cushioned chair the staff always brought for him. He overlooking the boarding and leaving flights through the huge window in the main passenger waiting area. He was now seventy nine, and still as pretty.

**Faded in the background,**

Kia was older and had children. He was a successful lawyer, blader, and father. A grandfather, too, thanks to his three oldest children of seven. His third daughter was soon to be a mother also. Kai and he had moving from China to Russia after Rei passed away. They never came to saw Takao. So the blue haired elder sat, waiting, hoping Kai would come back. Everyone in life had kind of let him fade into the background; expect the airport staff, who now drove him to and from home, because he was too old to drive. He was eighty four.

**Gray,**

When Takao had to be hospitalized from old age, he made a fuss. The airport had to be shut down for a few days, while everyone figured out a schedule so they could all watch Takao. The owner didn't mind—he wanted shifts, too. The tiny, elderly man, now slightly gray of skin, with fluffy white hair, just sat there, lying on a hospital bed with no way to get to the airport. So the staff hooked up TVs that monitored it, allowed Takao to see the whole airport.

This made him happy. He watched excitedly, waiting for his crimson eyed lover. He never came. Takao was now eighty nine.

**Replaying in my mind the day you only came back to say…**

Takao, now one hundred and two, was certain he was going to die, and that Kai just wouldn't be there. Honestly, there was simply no was around it. But he sat, staring at the monitors, talking mildly to the airport staff, and imagining Kai, in all his teenaged glory. Passion, blades, affairs, and first dates. They all melded together, forming his reality. Kai had died years ago.

Takao wished his body could follow already. But, he watched. His now dead son was forever gone to him, too. But he watched. Why? Well, it was because a grandchild could come up, or maybe even a great-grandchild. Or, maybe, just maybe, a great-great-granchild. He wanted to see them so badly. But he never did. When he sensed his dying day was near to him, very near, he demanding he be taken to his old apartment.

The laid him on his and Kai's old bed—which still smelled of Kai, amazingly—and gathered Kia's toys to put at his bedside. They put them in the once baby boy's crib, placing it next to the king bed. They gave him the boy's favorite teddy bear. It stilled smelled like baby power and young Kia. Takao smiled sadly, playing with the worn ears of the blue bear, and gently adjusting the faded yellow bowtie with the faded green polka dots like only a mother could.

He played the home videos they had made, filling the rooms with dead people's laughter—Hilary, Hitoshi, Rei, Max, Kai, Gramps, the list when on—and Kai's soft cooing to Kia, and Kia's wailing for food. He watching and listened to the all. He was no longer numb. He missed everyone and it _hurt_.

He died to the sound of Kia's cooing at the camera, Kai smelling covers wrapped tightly around him, the teddy bear in his arms, and the snowy fleece blanket, worn with age like every thing else in the whole house, resting on top on him. He could see his beautiful baby's grey eyes staring at him laughing in recognition, as Kai's laughed in amusement, red next to grey.

Smoke and fire—like clouds and storms, forever intertwined.

He was one hundred and seven.

"**Hey."  
**

* * *

Pent: I wrote the poem, and I haven't written in a while. Too lazy to carry through, I guess. But I thought up the poem, and it was too good not to do. I cried—snot bubbles and all—writing this. Here's the original poem: 

**In a moment of clarity,  
When all things sink together,  
I notice something,  
That I can't keep living this way,  
Why did I come to this realization?  
I'm not sure.  
But I've noticed that something is missing in you.  
So I'm letting you go find it.  
And I would like to see you again,  
But if I can't that's okay,  
Because I just want you to be happy anyway.  
I noticed how happier you were when you came to stay,  
But you said "I'm only here for a day".  
And I think that's fine.  
Because I've always backed you up.  
And with so many years poured in,  
Why stop?  
That kind of seems like a sin.  
So I'm always be there,  
Faded into the background,  
Grey,  
Replaying in my mind the day you only came back to say,**  
"**Hey."**


End file.
